Interview: Connor Trinneer And Dominic Keating On The Beginning And End Of ‘Star Trek: Enterprise’

This weekend, Star Trek: Enterprise stars Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating will participate in a Creation Entertainment Virtual Fan Experience. Yesterday, which was exactly 15 years since Enterprise went off the air, TrekMovie had a chance to have a quick chat with the pair to preview the event.

Today marks the 15th anniversary of the airing of the controversial Star Trek: Enterprise series finale “These Are The Voyages.” 

Dominic Keating: Really? 15 years you say? Oh, well, well. Crikey!

Connor Trinneer: That explains why it is featured on the front page of Wikipedia.

Did you guys agree with the critiques of the episode at the time and have your views changed over the years?

Connor Trinneer: One’s feelings about the finale were not just bittersweet, they were just bitter. We had the plug pulled out from us, and we felt it was far too soon. Personally, I liked the way I was able to conclude Trip with his untimely demise. As an actor that was satisfying to me. I have always felt that way.

Dominic Keating: By the time we had shot that episode I had got my head around it. I took the phone call from Rick Berman right in the middle of when we were shooting those two “In a Mirror Darkly” episodes, and he said, “Are you sitting down?” And I said, “Oh Rick, don’t tell me.” [Director] Jim Conway had come back to shoot the first one of those after all those years. He had shot the pilot. And then whoever the director was to shoot the second, whether he got wind of our cancellation or whether he was sick or something, he or she would not show up, and so they gave the directorship to Marvin Rush, our [Director of Photography]. So it was all very family and in-house, that 10-day period as we looked around one another in our Original Series costumes thinking, “This is it, we are now in the final months until the end of it all.” By the time we shot that last episode, I was trying to get on a [Aaron] Spelling show [laughs]. I was trying to use all my contacts with Jim Conway to get on some vampire show, I don’t know.

Apropos of the episode, I have always said it was clunky. But I have always sympathized with Brannon [Braga] and Rick [Berman] and them wanting to somehow honor not just our show, but the end of their tenure with the franchise. It wasn’t the best way to do it and clearly it upset Scott [Bakula] way more than we knew at the time. Remember when we did that 10-year reunion at CBS and he aired his grievance at that time. He was quite plainspoken that he felt we were shortchanged with that last episode and he wasn’t happy about it. But God bless Scott, he didn’t complain about anything. So, when he does say something like that you know that really got to him.

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating in “These Are The Voyages”

Connor just said he was satisfied with how his character arc wrapped up, how do you feel about how Malcolm’s arc was treated over the years?

Dominic Keating: I liked what I got to do. There were no guarantees for any of us, other than triumvirate, which is usually the thrust of Star Trek shows. You got the captain, we had Jolene [Blalock] as the Vulcan vixen, and Trip as the engineer. They knew that was going to be the thrust of the show. As for rest of us, we would give Scott a week off from time to time. But that was a crapshoot over what you got written for you and how you elbowed your way into a part there.

I was frankly honored and very happy with what they fleshed me out with and gave me to do. I enjoyed it very much. I didn’t expect to be the action man, running in to save the captain’s mess-ups every other week. I liked it very much getting to do a lot of running and jumping. The EV suit stuff got a little tiring, I will say. That is all recorded by the sound department for posterity. I had a particular meltdown in that suit one time on a comet I seem to remember. But yeah, I was very happy with what they gave us to do.

There was a concerted fan effort to bring the show back for a fifth season. Did you think it could happen and have any thoughts on where they might go with your characters?

Connor Trinneer: I didn’t have any particular ideas for where to go. I was always impressed with what they did to Trip. I felt I was in capable hands. The possibility of it coming back? There was some air in that. There was a minute there when I thought it was possible. But it just didn’t happen.

Each Star Trek show seems to have a male bonding pair and for Enterprise it was you guys. Was that something planned ahead, or did it happen organically?

Dominic Keating: It was self-evident early on that Connor and I got on and they could tell that we were friends off-set and when we were just knocking about. And there were a couple of scenes early on and they saw we had a good acting chemistry. It all clicked. We liked each other. We respected one another as actors and gave each other enough rooms to show our wares, if you will. That culminated pretty quickly with “Shuttle Pod One” towards the end of the first season. What a treat that was to do so soon.

Connor Trinneer: I also liked how they gave us that moment at the end of the series to say goodbye.

Dominic Keating: I actually caught that episode visiting a friend in the last few months, and it made me cry again. I remember shooting it vividly. Connor and I get to say goodbye to one another in engineering. I am going off to another ship and we are all getting dispersed. The gang is breaking up. It is a very moving scene as we say goodbye to each other on set, and in reality.

Dominic Keating and Connor Trinneer in “Shuttlepod One”

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of the premiere of the show, which debuted in September 2001. How do you feel the show was affected coming out so soon after 9/11 and how do you feel the post-9/11 era impacted Enterprise?

Connor Trinneer: It changed our show. It made our show what it turned out to be. It wasn’t intended to be that. You can’t really watch the show without thinking about 9/11. A big part of it was our collective reaction and our emotional experience ongoing throughout that time. Honestly it was therapeutic, for me at least. I was able, through a character, sort of experience and consider these things. You cannot watch the show without that as your backdrop.

Dominic Keating: The Xindi arc, which came out of the 9/11 experience, was also dictated by the huge success of 24, which had never been done before. It was this constant arc of a storyline. Each episode stood alone, but you had to watch them all to get the full picture. And that was our season three.

And then Manny Coto came on around half-way through that and wrote a particularly wonderful episode for his arrival [“Similitude”]. He’s a massive Star Trek fan and very talented and they handed the reins to him, he was showrunner for season four, and did a great job and gone on to major success since.

Connor Trinneer and Dominic Keating at STLV 2019

Trinneer and Keating virtual panel Saturday, meet and greet next Wednesday

The Creation virtual fan experience panel with Connor Trinneer and Dominic is on Saturday, May 16th at 10:15 AM PT. The live event uses StageIt, with tickets priced as “pay what you can.” They will both also be doing a limited meet and greet on May 21st, with 10 slots being auctioned off. You can bid at auctions.creation.com.


Keep up with all the Star Trek conventions and event news here at TrekMovie.com.

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The only thing I have to say about this is…

If only….

To bad Manny Cotto was to late .
With his arrival the series found her profile.
I liked the way how he handled the canon.

Imagine if he had the series on day one. Would have been more TOS/Star Fleet Battles than TNG for sure with full exploration and incorporation of Andorians, Vulcans, Tellerites, war with the Romulans. I hear he was even going to bring in the Kzinti(!!) I felt for him trying to ditch the TNGization suckage of the first season wrecking the prequal concept (too advanced ships, transporters, phasers on stun, full subspace comms, etc).

I have often thought the same, Tim. A very underutilized resource in the Trek universe.

Yeah… Wish he had been there from day one. He breathed life into the franchise after it had become critical.

Agreed with everyone else. Coto gave life to that show. Season 4 of Enterprise was the last season I have to say I really enjoyed pretty much everything in it (save for that awful finale which he had nothing to do with). Unfortunately none of the new Kurtzman shows has been as fun (though a few episodes have gotten close).

Yup, as a kid I loved Enterprise, but I still think it’s not as fun as TOS, which definitely is the most “fun”. I think that’s something that’s been missing from Trek. I agree that Enterprise was the last time I’ve been “satisfied” completely with Trek. This lens flare era is…not good.

I don’t get the love for Manny Coto. He did some good things. He was a solid showrunner. But he was no visionary or savior. If the show had continued I have no doubt the fandom would have turned on him the same way they did Berman and Braga. But that’s Trek fans for ya.

The two biggest issues Enterprise faced though, were a) coming on the heels of 13 consecutive years of more than 500 weekly episodes, and b) airing during a period of upheaval in television: moving to HD, to widescreen, to season long stories, in a world that saw the advent of TiVo, and much stronger competition like The West Wing, 24, Sopranos, Oz, Six Feet Under… I don’t think the producers could keep up with all the changes, and instead of being top quality television the way TNG was, or stacking up well against its contemporaries like DS9… Enterprise just lagged behind a lot of what was on TV at the time. It was just bog standard forgettable television.

I don’t get the rose tinted glasses for TNG either. The first three seasons were meandering, retreading and atrocious. They admittedly got much better, but it certainly wasn’t top quality until then. And even then, there were still plenty of stinkers to be had.

Let me see if I can answer this as someone who was not fully impressed with TNG. I felt the characters week and mostly wooden and dull. The show DID get better in the 3rd season. But I think that may have been it’s zenith. Sure there were some superior episodes. But the ratio of good to bad ones was very low indeed. That said, what it DOES have going for it was it was NEW Trek. Not a repeat of an episode we’ve seen over and over. And it did bring Trek back into the spotlight. So there is that…

They should bring back the cast and reboot it as a online series with an arc (would be tough to get Bakula from NCIS New Orleans though). The cast I thought was great.
Honestly the concept was great, they just couldn’t help but TNGize it that it sucked (peace with the Klingons, transporters and phasers on stun in the first hour of the show).
Zepham Cochrane and his team venture into the galaxy and gather resources to rebuild a post-WW3 Earth… but when Cochrane goes missing it all seems to fall apart. Searching for his lost mentor Archer sends out every ship he has. One ship comes back having detected a distress signal not from Cochrane but from a captured Vulcan Science ship. The Vulcan embassy says it is being held by the Vegan Tyranny which has suppressed intelligence life in the quadrant (but their influence seems to be fading) and that rescue is impossible. Archer goes anyway determined to show humanity has worth.
Then you have a show about colonization, first contacts gone wrong, primitive ships armed only with nuclear weapons that can’t call home for help, no phasers on stun, no transporters to beam you out of situations, shuttle landings, gas giants, black holes, the Vulcans thinking we are too illogical and emotional, the Andorians thinking we are push overs, the Romulans wanting us as slaves, the Klingons wanting us dead, short on dilithium long on conflict and problems. Wagon Train to the Stars – pre-starfleet, pre-united Earth, pre-Federation where Archer ends up having to represent all of humanity because he can’t phone home where all the colonists depend on those ships and the first outposts (that will become starbases). Horatio Hornblower in space x 100 + Wagon Train to the Stars.
If that ship has sailed with Trek thanks to ENT then maybe we can get that with a Marvel SWORD series or a spin off to the new Lost in Space.
I love TOS, but the above series would be even better because it would be more action/adventure and more relatable. It would be the original Star Trek pitch on steroids.

Commander, you know your pre-1987 Star Trek pre-history (Kzinti, Vegan Tyranny, Star Fleet Battles…)! It would have been better, for sure.

I just can’t get passed Z. Cochrane not being an actual Alpha Centaurian. As I’ve said before, my preferred “canon” is Star Trek: Spaceflight Chronology by Stan and Fred Goldstein.

FASAfan, this is how I would have explained and reconciled FC with TOS on the issue of Cochrane’s home planet through an ENT series. (Btw, i love FASA Trek too, that was the golden age of Trek IMHO).
The Vulcans seeing humans as irrational opened up an token embassy but were not too excited by Earth at first (seeing humans as illogial, over-emotional, irrational living in the wreckage of a civilization that almost destroyed itself).
Zephram Cochrane’s first mission in the Bonaventure was to Alpha Centauri where he discovered a similar culture to Earth but a Matriarchal society after much of the men died off, thought to be very similar to humans. Think Amazon / Wonderwoman world. (This is what Number One in The Cage was thought to have been in SFB).
Cochrane (of course) was happy to set up the first embassy on AC where he decided to move to and started organizing AC sending resources to help rebuild Earth. On AC he is seen as a leader in bringing the two civilizations together, helping AC rebuild after the virus and setting up mutually beneficial trade routes and helping take down Orion pirates. He starts to call AC “home”.
Away too long Cochrane then gets called to report to the bureaucratic nightmare which is the “Earth Unification Council” (a horrid mess which Montana has to often put back on track or ignore when then they threaten to shut them down, this only leading to a United Earth thanks to the team in Montana often bending the rules and manipulating events) and give an update to Archer (whom he has left in command of the team out of Montana) where him and the Bonaventure goes missing. With no subspace comms Earth just finds out about it when Cochrane doesn’t show up.
Desperate to find his mentor Archer sends out ships (and later has to travel to AC himself to tell them the bad news and reboot the alliance). The series starts with Archer waiting for these ships to come back and report.
A theme of the show is that Archer has to accept he is the new Zepham Cochrane and has to rise to the occasion.
The Alpha Centuarians, having a borderline reverse sexist society, would become one of Earth’s greatest allies while at the same time opening the door for a lot of Prime Directive debates (are the humans of Earth taking down the AC culture with their ‘equality’, is it a win-win on Earth men helping rebuild AC? What does the compromise look like? In the return to AC Archer has to confront an AC anti-human terrorist organization by gaining their respect fighting Orion pirates who often raid the system for slaves).
This makes Cochrane “from” Alpha Centuari and opens the door for a couple episodes.

Commander I like your series synopsis. Could have been a very satisfying watch.

Thanks! I think one day some series like this will transpire, I just don’t know if it will have the “Star Trek” label. Also not sure if it is third-party if it should be harder sci-fi or not.

Yeah I like it too. I wasn’t too bothered with what we got with Enterprise (but I admit I just never cared that much about pre-TOS history in general and why I had problems getting into the show originally and why a Khan show is totally eye rolling for me) but that would’ve been a better way to go, agreed.

But I have a feeling though UPN would’ve said no to it either way because it sounded like they just wanted another TNG type show that explored new planets every week. It’s why they rejected Berman’s and Braga’s idea of setting the show mostly on Earth in its first season. But if UPN had its way we would’ve never gotten Enterprise at all since they hated the prequel idea and why the pushed for the TCW angle.

I love the idea of a complete rebooting/re-writing of this series. The concept was great, but the execution — let’s face it — it was a tired production and writing team at the end of the Berman-era that was way past it’s prime — they were just going through the motions at that point and Berman-Trek had become like a commodity.

Would love to see a reboot of the horrid NX-01 as part of this. Give me a clean-lined ship that take characteristics from the XCV-330, which was suppose to the be the predecessor E, and then also give me a universe and other ships that look more like we would expect pre-TOS to look like, instead of it all looking like TNG-lite.

Ok so my thought on the ship is you have this battle axe primitive Bonhomme Richard that goes to save the Vulcan science ship only to be crippled; the crew space walk to the Vegan Tyranny outpost and escape in the Vulcan science ship. They show up at the Vulcan embassy on Earth with the Vulcan crew and, as a reward a shocked ambassador gives them the ship. One of the junior science officers just doesn’t get why the humans would attempt a rescue let alone pull it off that she (T’pol) asks to study the humans and join their crew. Humans then repair the damaged Vulcan science ship with human parts / rebuild the bridge (with a Phoenix or Bonhomme Richard class attached) and you get the XCV Enterprise.

LOL — very creative! Thanks

For me Enterprise was only the fourth best Star Trek show. With a few seasons more it would probably become the third best.

For me it was the 3rd best series.

Same for me ML31. If they hadn’t played it so safe in the first 2 seasons and it got a full 7 season run I genuinely feel it could have competed with DS9 as my favourite Trek show.

For me it’s TOS, then DS9, then Enterprise.

I agree with you Corinthian7, if Enterprise went all 7 seasons in the vein of season 4, then no joke, it would probably be in the top 3 shows for me too. At the moment, it’s still #5, which in terms of classic Trek its still dead last but ahead of Picard and Discovery. BUT Picard and Discovery still has a long ways to go, so that can those can easily change too (I have to say stuff like this so people don’t think I’m just trying to put down the Kurtzman shows ;)).

7th best for me, just slightly better than Voyager.

To me, it’s still a Star Trek show without a satisfactory ending… and the current custodians of the franchise should have one of their projects explore the 22nd Century.

I’m going to take some heat for this, but…watching Discovery has made me go back and appreciate Enterprise so much more than I did when it was on the air. Sorry, one fan’s opinion.

Actually I don’t think you would get much heat at all Danpaine. I felt the same way too after Discovery premiered. Mostly because unlike Discovery you really saw how hard they tried to make Enterprise fit in a pre-TOS era. A lot more people praise the show these days, certainly more than when it was on lol.

It’s probably a mixture of three things for me: nostalgia for sure, seeing all the great possibilities of where it could’ve gone by the time we got to season 4 is second and actually honoring what Star Trek was by actually focusing on exploration. I always say this although Enterprise and Voyager were perceived as the weakest shows at the time what I truly liked about them is that they spent a great deal of time actually going to strange new worlds and civilizations because they didn’t have all the Federation bureaucracy to deal with like TOS and TNG did. It’s actually quite amazing how many episodes of TOS and TNG involved just visiting Federation colonies week after week. They didn’t have those in VOY and ENT (although they did visit one or two Earth colonies), so pretty much anytime we saw them visit a planet it was actually an alien planet. First season of Discovery, it was almost an event if they just visited an actual planet, any planet! They literally only had one episode where they encountered a new alien species. One! So yeah I definitely appreciated Enterprise a lot more after that.

I was one of those people who stopped watching the show after the first season. It was the first time I had ever stopped watching a Star Trek show in my life. Up until the final year of Voyager I had watched every show the day they premiered every week with only a few exceptions. I just was not feeling it with Enterprise. I didn’t care it took place in the 22nd century, the crew did feel a bit bland to me and a lot of the stories in season 1 wasn’t ‘bad’ so much as just not very interesting just slow and bland. And I was never in love with TCW (and still isn’t).

That said I look back on season one now I really appreciate what they were trying to do with and I like it MUCH more today than I did when it started. Always odd how that works. But frankly if the show went the direction it did in season four as it did season one, it probably would’ve been a big hit for most.

Enterprise is the first series that became an obligation to watch for me, but I am genuinely excited by every episode of Discovery. The characters and actors are far more charismatic and the storytelling is involving and huge. For me Enterprise is the worst show based largely on the weakness of the cast and the tired routine storytelling that also plagued Voyager. As always there are some really memorable episodes, but the show felt and looked just as wobbly at the end as it did in the beginning. Star Trek is at it’s best when the cast is just right, it’s really the key to everything. But Bakula and Blalock, the most important actors in the show, were by far the weakest links and they never got better. The show honestly made me appreciate how challenging casting a show like Star Trek really is.

To me if casting was the main criteria then TNG would be on bottom. They had one winner in Stewart but no one else was really very good.

Data, Geordi, Worf? And the show improved dramatically over its first 4 seasons.

The acting was not very good. Burton was surprisingly bad in it. I thought he might have had the best resume but he was just plain awful. It is possible it is not so much the actors but the wooden lifeless characters they were asked to portray. So I give you that. But Stewart was playing a lifeless character as well. He had a charisma the other actors didn’t. Dorn made a good Klingon but I don’t think he was anything special overall.

I definitely hear you about Enterprise and the funny thing this is exactly how I use to feel too, especially with most of the cast. But I don’t know, in time it just changed for me. But let me make this clear, its not like it changed overnight or anything. I never watched the show beyond season 1 until 8 years after it was cancelled lol. THAT’s how much I didn’t care for it. I had no interest in the show whatsoever. I would see an odd rerun on UPN and kept flipping. Even when people kept saying season 4 was amazing, I ignored it. I had zero interest in the show for a long long time.

It wasn’t until 2013 I started to watch it again. And the only I gave it another chance because Star Trek.com had all the episodes you could stream for free with every show and I was unemployed for months (and bored ;). And I guess I was just missing the shows in general and Enterprise was ‘new’ Star Trek for me so gave it a go. But once I started watching and straight through I honestly just started to enjoy it. I honestly really like season 2! Everyone talks about the last two seasons, but I started to appreciate the show a lot from that point on. It’s crazy if I KEPT watching after the first season when it was on I would’ve been a much bigger fan of it.

And ironically that’s why I watch Discovery BECAUSE of what happened with Enterprise, I don’t want to judge a show too fast. For the record I enjoyed Discovery at the beginning. But yes that is the problem with serialized shows, the more the story unfolds you either like it or hate it and sadly I fell into the latter. But I enjoyed season 2 a lot more and liked it more than I hate and I think (or hope ;)) I like season 3 even more. But at this moment I’m enjoying Discovery about as much as I was enjoying Enterprise in its second season, so its not all good or bad. Probably a bit better as a whole but yeah, the ending still mostly sucked which is the problem with serialized shows. SAME damn issue with Picard and I REALLY wanted to like that show.

But that’s the difference, I rewatch Enterprise just as much as I do the other shows now and watch at least a few episodes every month. For whatever I just have no desire to watch anything of Discovery or Picard. But I am going to try and rewatch season 2 of DIS when season 3 comes. But I said the same thing about first season and never did it.

Discovery is uneven and has its problems, but Enterprise just stinks — and it’s all four seasons of stink. I respect your opinion, but this is my opinion. And unlike Enterprise, momentum and interest for Discovery seems to be building over time, whereas Enterprise was a constant downward curve of fan malaise with viewers bailing out season to season and ep to ep.

Also you can’t really compare a failed series that never improved to a series that is still finding it’s away with only two seasons under its belt. Imagine trying to compare TNG after Season 2 to TOS — no one in their right mind would claim TNG as the superior series at that point in time. By by the conclusion of TNG, it became a legitimate debate.

I agree with you, and I think I know the reason we feel this way. Enterprise was the last “conventional” Star Trek series before things changed to the “dark” format that seems to be preferred these days. The dialog was not covered by continuous music, and there were nice design touches like that diagonal beam in Archer’s quarters that he had to duck under to move around – just another indication that this isn’t a huge starship. The Captain’s Ready Room on Discovery was bigger than the entire NX-01 bridge!

I also think it’s sad when a Star Trek fan feels the need to apologize when posting an opinion. Our fandom is famous for having some of the most rabid haters around, but one fan’s opinion is worth exactly as much as the next one. Every series has its good episodes and its stinkers, but they are all Star Trek and I love them all equally.

Another great point Hal Enterprise was the last ‘conventional’ show! Agreed! I think a lot of people just miss that.

And definitely about your second paragraph. Every show has its fans and should all be treated equally. I don’t think they are all great but they are all my children just the same.

Exactly the same with me, Danpaine. I always had a mental block on Enterprise’s first season and would dip back in from the middle of Season 2 onwards to rewatch episodes, but I’ve started rewatching Enterprise from the beginning and wow… it’s so much more enjoyable than the utter tripe Kurtzman and his cronies have been dishing out in the past couple of years.

By the way, 15 years since the finale?! I’m feeling old!!!

Manny Coto should be brought in to fix the mess that is STD and STP.

I wouldn’t complain if Coto was brought in to run one of the new Trek shows. Or Secret Hideout Trek in general. He has the resume. And he certainly couldn’t do worse than what we have.

Agreed. When he finally got in there, that show started to soar.

I thought it kept going downhill. And there was absolutely no stabilization of the ratings during those two seasons yet we are now led believe the show improved? That’s sort of a reinvention of history. From ep 1 where I heard that awful theme song and saw that butt-ugly, unimaginative-incrementalist starship, design, it never grabbed me, even though I kept watching.

On the contrary, fans kept bailing out week to week at the same rate — through seasons 3 and four — with no upturn or stabilization in viewership. This is a ratings fact. Those seasons had better drama, but a lot of fans were turned off by the over-the-top fan service writing in Coto’s two years. The silly Klingon retrovirus crap-fest eps are the best example of this.

Me either! If Manny Coto could do with Discovery and Picard he did with Enterprise we may get some fantastic shows out of it.

Tiger2, do you recall another poster who is no longer posting here who was the only person who ever brought up Enterprise ratings for seasons 3 & 4? For some reason I got reminded of that poster after forgetting about that person.

Yes I do ML31, yes I do! ;)

Especially because as you said, there was only ONE person who made this same argument over and over and over again until now. Going to keep my mouth shut as long as they keep ignoring me as promised, but yeah as I said, it’s CLEARLY obvious who it is lol. I mean seriously. I DON’T make these types of accusations lightly against fellow posters, so when I DO make them, I’m basing it on a lot of direct factors and evidence. And people’s writings styles are easy to spot when you made hundreds of posts in the past and literally use the exact same arguments on multiple boards. Just sayin, it’s not rocket science! ;)

Everyone here who has been reading posts on this site the past three days knows you have been making these accusations against me, and that ML31 continues to pile on here with you on this.

How sad that you are violating the spirit of our agreement to troll on me. You couldn’t even get through 48 hours without personally attacking me? Come on!!!

When I agreed with your gentleman’s agreement proposal that we not address each other further, you can bet that I would not try to get around this by taking “wink-wink” potshots at you like this. You know exactly what you are doing, and you obviously want to continue trolling on me.

Dude GO AWAY!!! Seriously. You know I never liked you man. If you want to stay here, F-I-N-E, its not my board. But we know who you are lol. My god, can you make it ANY MORE OBVIOUS???? At least you did a better job of hiding it before.

And I didn’t bring it up man, ML31 did so yell at him! But do you think I wouldn’t agree with him? BorgKlingon, I DON’T care that you’re here, but yes I hate liars. But if you want to play this silly game, fine man. Say whatever you want here with whatever name you want to use, but people are not stupid. This response right here proves you are him lol.

But I’m not trying to get you banned. I don’t like you but I can ignore you happily. So say what you want and we will keep ignoring each other. OK?

I don’t need to read three more paragraphs of your self-justifying drama-BS on why it’s OK for you to slam me when we both agreed to not interact anymore.

You don’t want to interact with me, then stop your personal attacks on me — it’s that simple. I will never address you again here if you stop personally attacking me here. OK?

And I normally don’t speak for others here but ML31 would probably like it if you ignore him as well.

I’m sorry. That was really on me. I read the ratings argument, it caused me to recall those comments earlier and I just couldn’t help myself. This one was on me.

Apologies.

And I’m perfectly willing to entertain any concept with anyone. To a point. When someone reaches that point I just give them the self imposed “banning”. As I did with those others who are no longer posting here. I found it interesting that the same people I started to ignore vanished soon after.

Well I did respond lol. But I’m sorry you just called out something obvious and I responded. If you didn’t I wouldn’t have said anything but I did. But same time if you’re going to be THIS obvious, then duh! People are going to point it out.

And I have NEVER wanted anyone banned here or anywhere I post either. In fact, the REASON why I ask people to simply ignore me (and btw, I’ve only asked three people to ignore me out of all my time I been here) is because I DON’T want them banned (or myself obviously). But if you are going to get into useless tedious fights with people over and over again while being VERY overbearing, guess what, you’re probably going to get banned. ;)

And that’s the irony ALL three people who I asked to ignore me have all been banned. So clearly I was on to something. And none of them being banned had ANYTHING to do with me (one, sorta I guess but I never asked for it, he just wouldn’t stop being an overbearing bully to the point it felt like he was stalking me to the point it literally started to feel creepy and they banned him because of a response he said to me, but he was picking tedious fights with MANY people, not just me obviously. In fact both you AND me had the same issue with that other guy stalking us. Why do we get singled out by these people lol).

And usually when people are banned it rarely has anything to do with what they say but HOW they say it. That seems to get people in the most trouble, at least here. And yet they keep doing it, even when they show up again. It’s mindboggling but I guess old habits die hard.

I will say THIS and we’re all go on about our business, but until the last few days the said poster has been COMPLETELY fine from all the posts I’ve seen. Because they just post their opinions without trying to pick a silly fight with everyone. THAT guy I can talk to, even if we still disagree. He seems OK. Unfortunately its the OTHER guy I don’t like and sadly who showed up here lately.

But no one cares who posts here or what they say. It’s like 30 regulars here. Just be civil, DON’T act like a 12 year old and get into tedious fights with everyone and no one will care what say or will WANT to ignore you in the first place.

As I said, I don’t care personally (and yes I did handle it badly in that other board but I guess it triggered old war wounds lol). Post whatever you want, use 12 different sock puppets if you like, we’re all just guests here. All I ask is just leave me out of out of it now that I do know. But don’t think we’re idiots either. ;)

You know, Tiger2 and ML31, I’ve been sitting here thinking “Not that tired old saw about ratings again…”

I must have answered it a couple of times, and about Voyager too. Paramount was determined to have a Trek show as it’s flagship no matter how poorly the network was doing or how delayed its rollout. It’s just not possible to compare the UPN Trek ratings to shows broadcast on networks or syndication nationally.

So, I’m glad you two took this on.

Last thought, the grimdark of post 9/11 American entertainment wasn’t and isn’t Trek ethos or niche. It’s not surprising the show struggled with that. It’s actually to Coto’s credit that he found a way to take it forward even if the market was tending in a grimdark direction.

I’ll be interested to see as we come through Covid whether there will be another swing of the pendulum away from grimdark and towards aspirational franchisees like Trek.

Hearing the Enterprise ratings talk felt like I was back in 2018. ;D

And it’s just silly to hang on that why to ‘prove’ less people liked Enterprise. TNG was the ONLY Star Trek show that had more ratings at the beginning than when it started, the only one out of five shows and YET people have pointed out all the shows improved.

DS9 first season had an average of 10 million people. DS9 last season was around 5 million people. It lost HALF it’s audience in seven seasons and every one will tell you the show got immensely better later on. So I don’t understand why this keeps getting stated over and over and over again….for years? Ratings alone does determine the quality of show anymore than box office proves the quality of a film.

And yes ENT was on a troubled network. Again what gets missed is that all the shows were losing ratings on that network because people were tuning out overall and why it went belly up a year later.

Many Coto did an excellent job with this show. I would give anything for him to straighten out the mess that is Discovery and Picard as well.

I get that for the season to season overall ratings decline, issues like being on a bad network, and sociological stuff like reduced interest in Trek due to 911 would be valid considerations, but that does not explain how within Season 3 and within Season 4, from week to week, the ratings for the next episode continually went down? This makes no sense if the show is getting much better?

This episode-to-episode within Seasons 3 and 4 continuous decline in viewership is simply fans bailing on the show because they just aren’t that interested in the product. If the product had been significantly improving with Coto as some people now claim many years later, then we should have at least seen some stabilization in viewership like we saw when 7o9 was added to Voyager. But not only did we not see a stabilization, but we didn’t even see a decline in the rate of ratings decline.

I can buy that NOW, the subset of fans who really like Enterprise — a modestly sized but very vocal group — appreciate the Coto seasons over the first two seasons. But that wasn’t the case when the show was on the air. The show failed, and fans continued to bail in the final two seasons. It is what it is.

Jesus, enough, OK? Less than 48 hours after we both civilly agreed to not interact, you have 4 posts today with 795 words personally attacking me?

ONCE AGAIN, if you don’t want to interact with me, then stop your personal attacks on me — it’s that simple. I will never address you again here if you stop personally attacking me here.

I haven’t personally attacked you other than calling you by your original handle here. That was only 14 words.

But OK, we can move on! Ignore me and I will you.

Apology accepted. Thanks, dude.

Fans still kept bailing during his supposed improved seasons of Enterprise. Those last two seasons had some of the worst fan-service eps in the history of Star Trek.

I hate to say it, but the cast was not the strongest we’ve seen and it’s the main reason I had a hard time loving this show. Very few of the actors seemed at ease with their characters, with the exception of these two, and perhaps Billingsley. The rest of the cast came off uncharismatic and cringey way too often. The show’s sexualization of T’Pol is particularly outdated and unforgivable. T’Pol was actually a fantastic character concept with strong writing, but Blalock’s performance was bizarre and timid. Scott Bakula is a likable guy, but Archer is about as wooden and uninvolving as it gets.

I also found the story arcs in the show completely inconsequential, from the Temporal Cold War to the Xindi conflict, none of it was particularly impactful. I appreciate that people enjoy it, but with the exception of a few great episodes among the 4-Seasons, the show as a whole is my least favorite by a wide margin.

Well said!

I agree with you about Bakula. I think they were more excited to get him after Quantum Leap than they gave thought about him being right for the role. He always felt like he was forcing his lines out. He rarely felt natural. He was the weakest link in the Enterprise cast, for sure. The rest of the cast was alright. And Billingsly was REALLY good as Phlox.

I use to watch this with my Dad 20 years ago and I remember routinely blurting out how bad I thought Bakula was at the role. He had this unnaturally forced line delivery that always made me cringe. The Mirror Universe episodes in particular are almost unwatchable for me because he ramps it up to maximum. I re-watched those episodes because of the first season of Discovery and it’s painful. Admittedly this isn’t all the time, but anytime he needs to express emotion, he can’t help but use the same technique.

A failed series all around that just got worse over time, but that’s not the fault of these two, who brought their A-game to every ep they were in.

I would argue that ENT is the series with the most likeable cast. Season 3 in particular is probably the boxset I watch the most regularly out of all of my Trek collection. Season 2 gets a bad rep, but Similtude, Cogenitor and Regeneration still send shivers down my spine with each rewatch.

I understand what you say about the cast. But I actually liked DS9’s best. Not to downgrade Enterprise’s at all. I recently picked up the Season 3 BD. And it’s even better than I remember. That is how you do a season long arc. I honestly don’t recall the season 1 & 2 shows that well. Haven’t seen them in ages. But Similitude was from season 3. I would argue it was one of the best Episodes of Trek ever. You can add the back to back Azati Prime and Damage to the list as really good Enterprise ones.

Yes, apologies about Similtude. It is indeed Season 3. Damage and Azati Prime are terrific you’re right. I also love Stratagem. Even though I know the outcome, the tension as the plot unfolds is very well done.

Was not a huge fan of Enterprise when it premiered but like others I began to appreciate it later on. It had HUGE missteps in its first season but I thought got better and better every season. I actually think second season has some really great underrated episodes from Carbon Creek to Stigma, Dead Stop and First Flight. Cogenitor is one of my favorite episodes in Star Trek and just a great story about the impact of what happens when you try to substitute your culture for someone else’s even with good intentions. It’s very Star Trek in its approach. But yes season 2 had some of the worst episodes too but overall I realized I liked more of them than hated.

Seasons 3 and 4 are just amazing in so many ways. People focus a lot on the Xindi Arc obviously (which I like and watched several times now but never loved) but ironically season 3 probably had the best standalone episodes in the entire series. Similtude that Trinneer mentioned was probably the best one that season but for me everything from Twilight to North Star and E2 just felt like classic Star Trek!

Nothing need to be said about season 4. With the exception of TATV, it was great all around. I rewatched the Augment arc last month when Picard was still running and seeing Spiner play yet another Soong on that show motivated me to watch those episodes again and its still one of my favorite story lines. If we got stuff like that in season one, the fanfare may have been very different early on.

Enterprise went before her time. I would give anything to gotten a fifth season. It sounded amazing.

If CBSAA had started with a 5th season of Enterprise I would have more readily forked over the money for it. That is how much I wish we got that season that was supposed to lead into the Romulan War.

I think a lot of people would. ESPECIALLY if they went into the Romulan war. That would’ve been cool. Sigh, I know in hindsight it’s easier to criticize and point things out but I really wish they went that direction in season 2 or 3 and had season 1 start dropping the breadcrumbs from the start.

It doesn’t mean the show would be a success but I have to believe more people would’ve stayed with it if had something like that as a tie in from the start and not very confusing TCW.

Yeah I have to agree with your take Re Enterprise, bad first season but a series that steadily improved. ALSO HUGE TAKE ON S3 STANDALONE EPISODES – despite switching to a serialized narrative, they still managed to make some awesome standalone stories and perhaps Discovery and Picard can consider that. If so they may have to make 10-12 plus episodes to finish the story arc say in 8-10 hours, but throw in 2-3 standalone stories and I think it would be much appreciated by many. (Example Nepenthe) Trekmovie.com – please pass on Tiger2’s take to CBSAA or other insiders.

DeahH, I have been making that point for years now.

Supposedly it was the network that insisted on the Temporal Cold War thing. From what I understand Berman & Co didn’t want to go there. So the show was starting off on the wrong foot already. Even as a fan I was not a huge fan of that concept. I recall reading that Coto had claimed he had a number of episode ideas for season 5. Including a visit to Stratos, the establishment of Star Base One and he wanted to start leading up to the Romulan War.

Again… If only.

Trinneer was absolutely the breakout actor and Trip the breakout character on Enterprise. Usually it’s a character who isn’t totally human who gets the best stuff to do, but he really made an impression, kudos to Rick Berman in this case for fighting for his casting.

Yeah Trip was definitely the break out star. I just loved he came off the most ‘human’ Star Trek character we had since probably McCoy. Of course that was probably because he was basically suppose to be a version of McCoy lol, but it worked!

It was pretty obvious they were trying to recreate Kirk-Spock-McCoy with Archer-T’Pol-Trip. It did not have the same magic but they tried. Then they started up the T’Pol Trip thing. Which I was not happy with but they handled it pretty well. Their scene at the end of Terra Prime would have made for a fantastic series finale moment.

Yeah that was true and they made it clear all along that’s what they were going for. I didn’t mind it but didn’t think it was necessary either. And I really did like the Trip and T’pol relationship and how it went from antagonism to a full on romance. I thought they handled it really well. I always wondered was that the game plan from day one with those two? I’m sure that’s been asked in the past but I never seen those questions or answers. But then they may have decided to go that route in season 3 when they retooled the show in general.

Either way I liked how it evolved. And yes agreed Terra Prime is the TRUE series finale of that show. TATV is just a ‘lost’ TNG episode of Riker and Troi hanging out in the holodeck exploring history.

I appreciate Enterprise and that episode wasn’t too bad.

Loved Enterprise. After it was cancelled, I got a Jack Russell Terrier puppy and I named him Trip.
11 years later, he passed away due to cancer.
In NYC, Reed Pop was doing the 50th anniversary.
I printed a picture of our dog and told Connor about how Trip got named after his character. He was about to give the picture back to us and then said: “Wait, this WAS your dog?” When we said he’d passed that summer, he graciously signed it and spent 10 or 15 minutes with us. An amazing guy.

I really loved Enterprise and while some episodes left something to desire, the core of the series was fantastic. . .earthling going out into space for the first time. I think a 5th season building up to the Romulan War and season 6 and 7 fighting the war and finally season 8, the formation of the Federation would have been amazing. I still watch it end to end every year. It’s my third, now fourth favoriate behind TNG; Disco; Picard and Enterprise (then DS9 and Voyager). Would love to see a Romulan War/Federation birth mini-series and unkill Trip! Love you guys.

There is the “Rise of the Federation” Novel-Series with former Enterprise Crew ( including Trip )! The Romulan-War was handled in the previous books. Both i can recommend !

“A new nation has arisen from the ashes of the Romulan War: the United Federation of Planets, an unprecedented union of diverse species cooperating for the good of all. Admiral Jonathan Archer – the former captain of the Earth starship Enterprise, whose efforts made this union possible – envisions a vibrant Federation promoting galactic peace and a multispecies Starfleet dedicated to exploring strange new worlds. Archer’s former crewmates, including Captain T’Pol of the U.S.S. Endeavour and Captain Malcolm Reed of the U.S.S. Pioneer, work with him to secure that bright future. Yet others within the Federation see its purpose as chiefly military, a united defense against a dangerous galaxy, while some of its neighbors view that military might with suspicion and fear. And getting the member nations, their space fleets, and even their technologies to work together as a unified whole is an ongoing challenge.
When a new threat emerges from a force so alien and hostile that negotiation seems impossible, a group of unaligned worlds asks Starfleet to come to its defense, and the Federation’s leaders seize the opportunity to build their reputation as an interstellar power. But Archer fears the conflict is building toward an unnecessary war, potentially taking the young nation down a path it was never meant to follow. Archer and his allies strive to find a better solution…but old foes are working secretly to sabotage their efforts and ensure that the great experiment called the Federation comes to a quick and bloody end.”

COTO 2028

I’ve always thought that Star Trek Enterprise would be the perfect platform for movies. Something about the Romulan War and exactly how it began would be appropriate. LLAP

I think most of us on this board have said their piece regarding Enterprise, but here are a couple of takes I have not mentioned before.
1. I know that writers sometimes play fast and loose with the lives (and deaths) of certain beloved characters, in this case Trip is the one who is killed off early. IMO Killing off Picard’s brother’s family in Generations COMPLETELY ruins the ending of the TNG episode family, to the point I know longer watch the ending. I know this mirrors real life (trust me I know), but sometimes we look at Star Trek as something hopeful and whether it’s Trip, Picard’s nephew or Icheb in Picard, I think many fans would appreciate better care of certain characters. Redshirts buying the farm is just as tragic, but we have no emotional tie to them so it is accepted (rightly or wrongly)
2. As for Enterprise’s opening credits, I know most really hate it, but I personally love its inspirational theme and how it depicts the history of flight and space. I especially like the depiction of the ISS which was just a simple one module “tin can” when the show started but later on we see a more familiar station that orbits today. I am still waiting for the hypersonic shuttle. Personally I thought it was inspiring and it is one of the reasons I jumped at the chance of entering the commercial space industry way back in the early 2000s. So here is a little love for the much maligned (and perhaps deservedly so) opening of Enterprise. Haha.
Thanks to Trekmovie.com for the info on tomorrow’s panel, I will probably check it out.

I personally have no huge issues with killing off characters to make a better show. Even a character I like. Usually it’s when they return that I really take issue. I loved TUC but still think it would have been better to leave Spock dead. Bringing him back completely undermined WoK.

I have no issue with killing Picard’s brother. To me that did nothing to ruin the Family episode. Which was pretty dull anyway. (Even the normally reliable Worf B story couldn’t save that sorry episode) I like how they handled Icheb’s death. It worked very well for the story. It’s not like they killed Chakotay or Janeway. Which I wouldn’t have a problem with either, BTW.

Yeah I agree, the opening titles are very inspiring, even if the music was…hokey…but that’s what we gotta love about Star Trek. I would love to see more of that inspiring spirit in the shows coming out today. Alas…

Enterprise got canceled on my 13th birthday and I was suuuper bummed, especially since I so enjoyed the final seasons. I wasn’t thrilled with the finale but I didn’t realize at the time that it was such a legendary stinker. Killing Trip was just insulting. But I love Dominic and Connor, I got to interact with them at a 50th anniversary con and they just seemed like buds, they even told me where they were going to get dinner later that day if I wanted to stop by (cuz it was in my neighborhood). That would’ve been fun, getting food with them!

I love how Wikipedia featured the episode, goes to show that TPTB are Trek fans. We definitely need more Star Trek in our culture.

Even if they managed to do a 5th season or even another edition of Enterprise, my guess is I probably wouldn’t be watching it if it goes the route of the current Trek shows. A Trek should not have an M rating. I was watching Picard with my kids when the odd and out of place F bomb was dropped by the admiral. The writers somehow feel the need to soil an interesting story line with foul language. It’s not a Trek that I’m familiar with and not one that I want to watch with my family. Although Enterprise was one of my favorite versions of Trek.

24 did not start the continuous story arc. That honor belongs to a little show called Babylon 5.

I really like Star Trek Enterprise. I was upset to see it ended the way it did. In my opion it was one of the best Star Trek series. They should have not killed off Trip and they should bring it back and try again.

I liked Enterprise. One of my favorite parts was the military look of the ships. The whole look of the show looked more believable.

I think Trip could come back. If Spock died and could come back so could Trip! Miss Enterprise very much!